


Purple Prose

by Nny



Category: The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Commitment, Domestic, First Kiss, M/M, Sharing Clothes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-18
Updated: 2017-08-18
Packaged: 2018-12-17 01:19:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11840988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nny/pseuds/Nny
Summary: Clint’s always had kind of a thing for people wearing his clothes. It’s nothing creepy, or at least he’s never thought about it that way; the embarrassing fact of it is that he’s more into the idea that they’re gonna stick around, at least a little. Someone rolling out of your bed and pulling on your shirt, that’s someone that’ll stay to grin at you over breakfast, over the pancakes whose mix you bought in hopes of just this. Clint is, at heart, an optimist.





	Purple Prose

Clint’s always had kind of a thing for people wearing his clothes. It’s nothing creepy, or at least he’s never thought about it that way; the embarrassing fact of it is that he’s more into the idea that they’re gonna stick around, at least a little. Someone rolling out of your bed and pulling on your shirt, that’s someone that’ll stay to grin at you over breakfast, over the pancakes whose mix you bought in hopes of just this. Clint is, at heart, an optimist.

Unfortunately optimists, looking up at the brightest possible future, just end up putting their heads in the perfect position for fate to kick them in the teeth.  

One time, for all of five minutes, he’d convinced himself that he was in love with Natasha. It may have had a little something to do with the way she’d looked in his sweatshirt, sleeves falling over her hands and her legs curled underneath her. She’d looked soft and approachable and at home in a way that had settled itself into his gut, and he’d had to bite his tongue to stop himself from fucking up everything, from losing the best friend he’s ever had. But that’s, yeah, the hopelessness of his type: people he trusts, and respects, people who can kick his ass, but also people who will _stay_.

In his experience, they’re mutually exclusive.

So yeah, he gets a little and frankly kinda embarrassing flash of heat in his gut when he sees Bucky in one of the official Hawkeye shirts, the hideous one with the quiver printed on the back. He  _gets_  that there’re boxes of the shit all over the tower, that Bucky’s not exactly arrived with more than the unnerving buckled leather on his back, but there’s still an awareness there. 

There’s  _been_  an awareness there, though, from the first time Bucky arrived at the Tower, kneeling in the lobby with his hands linked behind his head. Clint had held his bow ready, arrow strung, but at that close range it wasn’t exactly like he’d needed to pay attention, and he hadn’t been able to help the way his eyes had dropped to that tempting mouth, the way Bucky was chewing a little on his lip. 

Strike one for Clint’s type – Bucky is angry death in monochrome leather – and he’d never been one for bondage but the handcuffs had done more for him than he’d like to admit. He’d figured he was safe, though, from anything more than the odd passing fantasy about the things Bucky could do with that beautiful mouth. They’ve had conversations now, so at least it’s a little less creepy, and Clint would almost call them friends if he could stop picturing him while jerking off. You’re not supposed to do that with your friends; it never ends well. 

He’d thought – because Clint is nothing if not a self-sabotaging idiot – that there was no way he could trust someone like the _Winter Soldier_ , not in a million years. And he’d gone right on thinking it, right until he found himself focusing on his part of the mission, letting Bucky go with Tasha and _knowing_ he’d have her back. ‘cos sure, he’d trusted the guy to watch _his_ back before, but…

Yeah. That was strike two.

So he maybe keeps his distance a little, tries to ignore the brooding elephant in the goddamn room, even when the elephant is wearing Hawkeye purple. He makes sure not to notice how Bucky moves in a fight, lethal and beautiful, makes sure not to notice the way his smiles at Steve transform his whole face. And Clint is absolutely, positively not thinking about how he’s never seen Bucky wear another Avenger’s merchandise, because that way? That way madness lies.

Of course, things in the Avengers tower are never more than three steps from madness, whether that’s Bruce hulking out and wrecking the lab, or actual flying monkeys attacking the helipad at three o’clock in the goddamn morning.

Clint’s the first on the scene, because Clint and sleep have never exactly been on friendly terms. He vaults over the back of the couch, grabs his bow and quiver – on bad nights, he can never have them too far from his hand – and races out onto the rooftop, the gravelled surface painful against his bare feet.

“Avengers,” he yells, tapping his aids, “assemble!” Inside the tower, red lights start to flash.

There’re too many of them to focus on anything else, so it’s not until he sees the familiar light of repulsor blue that he registers he’s not alone out there, that he’s got to start sparing the explosives when there’s others around that can get hurt. Sam’s easily tracked, his wings catching what little light there is and throwing it back, and the Iron Man armor is lit up like a fireworks display, ‘cos subtlety has never exactly been Tony’s thing. Steve he can locate by triangulating the shield’s flight, and Tasha’s bites flash to the sound of angry monkey screams.

Which means the flash of purple in the corner of his eye, that’s either Bucky or Bruce, and Bruce at this point would be unlikely to be human-sized. So Clint focuses on draw and release, on selecting the right arrowheads, and doesn’t turn his head until the little bastards have stopped coming.

“Wow,” Bucky says, into the silence of aching muscles and heavy breathing, “the future _sucks_.”

Clint turns to look at him with a sense of doomed inevitability, and swallows hard when he gets a decent look. The threadbare sweatpants he’s managed to just about get used to, no matter how lovingly they cling to Bucky’s ass. It’s easy to declare them off-limits, it’s easy to ignore them, ‘cos he’s surrounded by unnervingly beautiful people every damn day and Clint Barton can act like a goddamn professional no matter the goddamn holes in the seam on his inner thigh.

(The shower is not a place he has to be professional. It doesn’t _count_.)

What’s killing him is the bright purple hooded sweater that Bucky’s wearing. The one that’s maybe, somehow, even a little too big. The one that’s got the purple arrow on the front, and the target placed carefully on the upper arm, just exactly where someone might place an affectionate kiss while waiting for breakfast pancakes to cook.

Clint pinches the bridge of his nose, and then jumps out of his skin when Steve claps a hand on his shoulder.

“Good work, Hawkeye, he says, and Clint lets out a long and hopeless sigh.

“I’m going back to bed,” he says.

That’s the second time.

The third time he can’t help but register it, Sam’s trying to talk the gathered Avengers into some kinda chore rota, ‘cos he’s an actual grown up, and Bruce and Tony are attempting to cultivate a civilisation of sentient mold in their collective coffee cups. Tasha’s got her feet propped on Clint’s chair, and his foot is resting on hers - they’re having a debate about Sharknado in Morse code tapped against hips. 

Bucky slinks into the kitchen and pours two cups of coffee, placing one in front of Clint and blowing gently across the top of the other as he drags out the chair next to him. That in itself is new, and Tasha arches an eyebrow at him, pausing in the middle of a rant about flying shark physics. 

“Thanks,” Clint says, and Bucky yawns and shrugs, scratching at the line of his jaw and flashing the purple watch he’s wearing, the one with the cheap plastic strap and arrows for hands. Clint had worn one for a week one time, ‘cos apparently that affected sales figures and all the proceeds went to various charities that Tony’d let him pick. They interfered with the bracers, though, and it’d been with a guilty sense of relief that Clint had stopped wearing it: he still remembered the weird plasticky smell of his wrist after wearing. 

It's hard not to think about that, about how he now knows what it would be like to press his mouth against the inside of Bucky’s wrist, the soft skin there. 

He’s a little lost in the thought of it, staring down at his coffee but seeing something else entirely, when a sudden nudge to his hip has him looking up. 

“What?” he says. “Yeah, absolutely.” 

“Thanks for volunteering,” Sam says, a little sarcastic, and Clint blinks. 

“Uh,” he says, but Sam has moved on, and Clint’s left with the line of heat that burns up his spine as Bucky leans in too close, as his hair brushes against Clint’s ear. 

“You’re washing up all the shit that won’t fit in the dishwasher,” he says, low and amused, and fuck if it ain’t somehow the most erotic thing Clint’s ever heard. He breathes out, a little shaky, and Tasha snorts into her herbal tea. 

Later that night, Clint up to his elbows in suds, and it’s the final fuckin’ straw. Bucky wanders into the kitchen, and he’s apparently forgotten to put on a damn shirt, and his sweatpants have ridden down enough that the purple waistband is visible. 

“Jesus,” Clint breathes, “you’re  _killing_  me.” 

The light is low, sure, but not low enough to explain the darkness of Bucky’s eyes, so Clint’s pretty sure of his welcome when he turns his back on the pans and takes a couple steps closer, eyes flicking between Bucky’s eyes and his goddamn tempting mouth. 

Clint leaves wet hand-prints on the fabric over Bucky’s hips, tugging him in and laying claim the way he’s been needing to for a while now, Bucky’s lips soft and welcoming against his. He’s had a lot of good kisses in his life, but the scrape of Bucky’s stubble against his is something else, something new, and Clint bites down a little on that beautiful lower lip and treasures the resulting groan.

After a long moment, the longest moment, hot mouths and uneven breaths, Bucky pulls away and grins at him, wide and filthy. 

“Took your time,” he says. “I was expecting you to try gettin’ into my underwear way before I had to get into yours.” 

Clint gently cups his jaw, notes with stupid helpless gratitude how Bucky leans a little into it, and asks as seriously as he can, “How d’you feel about pancakes?”


End file.
